


Across Galaxies

by lazilycoolllama



Series: Sci-Fi One Shots [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Just a girl and a bug insect talking about emotions, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 16:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11993706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazilycoolllama/pseuds/lazilycoolllama
Summary: Diane reflects on her life and gets homesick. She talks through her emotions with her alien crew mate.





	Across Galaxies

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is one of the first of many short stories I hope to be posting. If you like this one, look out for more!

Earth is so big, but space is bigger. It expands over billions and billions of lightyears, covering everything with blazing stars and vast nebulas. There are planets covered in poisonous gas, and blackholes literally bending time. There are planets that crash together and create new worlds. There are whole galaxies that no human eye has ever seen. Space is beautiful, breathtaking, and so immensely lonely.

            The observation deck was my favorite place to be. Nobody came here anymore. Sure, the first few months we had all been wide-eyed and excited at every sight in the universe, but now we had fallen into the same routine. Space had become our norm. Still, after seventeen years this was my favorite place to come and watch the stars.

            I heard him before he saw him. It was hard not to, what with the eight legs that clacked against the floor. Ryok, the insectoid being from a planet covered in rocky cliffs and sandy fields had joined our crew four cycles ago. It wasn’t his first time in space, but it was his first time travelling with an inter-species crew, and his first time travelling at lightspeed.

            With a sharp _click_ of his mandibles, Ryok stopped at the doorway of the observatory, obviously not expecting me to be there. “Human-Diane! Why are you here? Aren’t the rest of your species participating in an activity at this time?”

            Keeping my eyes on the frozen planet we were circling, I responded, “I wasn’t interested in getting drunk.”

            “But isn’t that a social activity for your species? You are a social species, am I correct? Perhaps I misread the Human Interactions Manual…”

            “No, we are,” I answered. “I just wasn’t feeling up to it.”

            The was a moment of silence as Ryok processed what I said. With a few clicks, he approached me. “Human-Diane, what is wrong? Are you sick?’

            I sighed. It was always like this with the new species brought on. Our crew consisted of seven different species, including the four humans. After the Expansion War, a manual had been created by the Galactic Convention to lessen fights between humans and other species. Every crewmember was required to read the manual, and often it led to more confusion than understanding. Ryok was just reacting like practically every other species that had joined this crew, and I couldn’t be upset with him. It wasn’t his fault he had never encountered one of us.

            “I’m not sick. I just… I just like looking out there.” I answered lamely.

            “Would you like me to leave you alone?” He asked, not unkindly but in that monotone way that most insectoid beings had. I hesitated, then shrugged. Ryok sat next to me and gazed out the window. I glanced at him, and found half his six beady eyes fixated on the planet, and the other half on me. I quickly turned back to the window. For a few minutes, we sat in silence. Why was he up here? Most new crew members would either be getting drunk with the other three humans: Rob, Ignis, and Selene, or watching them in bemused wonderment at our ability to poison ourselves and do stupid things. From the now open doorway, I could hear the laughter and chatter of the rest of the crew.

            “Why aren’t you with them?” I asked, breaking the fragile silence we had built between us.

            His joints creaked as he shifted his weight, “My kind are not prone to participate in large groups. We come together in colonies, and in times of distress we may join each other for survival, but we are a singular race of being. Colonies may be spread out over hundreds of miles. In my larva cycles, I saw only my caregiver and other the larva before venturing out to find my own way. What about you, Human-Diane? I have heard tale of the massive groups of humans found across the galaxy.”

            I chuckled, “Yeah, we are kind of clingy, aren’t we? I don’t know. Sometimes that just gets so overwhelming.”

            “Overwhelming?”

            “You know, when you just can’t deal with everyone else and all their noise and issues. Especially when you can’t even deal with your own issues.”

            “And what issues can you not deal with?”

            I sighed, “I’m thirty-five years old, Ryok. The moment I turned eighteen I left my home on Earth and joined the Convention Garrison. I was ready to see the galaxy and explore whatever was out there. That was seventeen years ago. I’ve seen the Colliding Planets of Zyzx, and the wastelands of Drei. I’ve gotten drunk with Syae, and bartered my way off a Klasporian held planet with only the clothes on my back. I’ve rescued orphans off Huqua, fought off raiders on Trense, and broken my heart over people who will never love me back. I’ve lived a pretty great life. It was exactly the life I wanted when I was eighteen. But now… I miss my mom, Ryok.”

            “Mom?” He managed to make his monotone voice sound confused.

            “I guess it would be my version of your caretaker. She gave birth to me, raised me, fed me, made sure I did my homework and stuck a healing patch on my knee when I fell off my glider. She did everything for me, and how did I repay her? By taking the first ship off Earth and never looking back.”

            Ryok was quiet, and I instantly felt bad. He had just come up here to get away from the noise, and now I was unloading several years of baggage onto his carapace. Groaning, I let my body fall against the wall and wished that I had just gone and gotten drunk.

            “It seems to me that you are, as your people call it, _homesick,_ ” He said carefully. “I do not experience such feelings, as I did not have a home like humans do, but I can understand the feeling. I also miss my planet. It was warm, and it was familiar. You must miss this mom of yours the same way that I miss Klikakos.”

            Glancing at Ryok, I saw all six of his eyes trained on me. It wasn’t a pitiful look, or even sympathetic. It was intelligent, and understanding. I suddenly felt my chest seize as I realized he wasn’t judging me, a human hardened by years of fighting in space, for missing my mom. Sniffing, I jerked the corner of my mouth into a watery smile. “Yes, I guess I do.”

            He extended his forefront arms and twitched his mandibles awkwardly, “I have read that humans benefit from physical contact, usually in the form of an embrace called a hug. Would you like a hug, Human-Diane?”

            I laughed, “Sure, Ryok.” I shuffled over and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face into his cool shell-like skin. I could hear his three hearts pound away, and I earned for the soft beat of my mother’s heart.

            “Thanks,” I said.

            “Of course,” He answered as I pulled back. “You are my crewmember. It would be detrimental to leave you in such a distressed state.”


End file.
